NKY officials see increase in heroin crimes along I-75

Overdoses happening in gas stations, restaurants near highway

Heroin users are hitting the road but they are not leaving town, they are just finding a new place to get their fix.

The fire chief with the Crescent Springs/Villa Hills Fire Department said the heroin users are ending up in their community.

“It’s because of our location along I-75. We are getting more and more where they overdose and pull into something that looks familiar to them, a gas station or a restaurant,” said Chief Jeff Wendt.

Wendt said they usually average three overdose calls a week, but they have already had four this week, with three alone on Tuesday. “It seems like everybody, even in Villa Hills and Crescent Springs is touched; at least one person that they know and I know it's been related to all the crime in the area,” said Wendt, referring to heroin use.

He also said many of the people the department helps are repeat offenders because of the drug Narcan, which reverses the effects of heroin.

Also seeing the correlation between heroin use and crime was Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders.

“I would estimate that at least 80 percent, maybe as high as 90 percent of all the felony cases we have come through Kenton County are either heroin possession cases, heroin trafficking cases or cases tied to heroin addiction,” said Sanders.

Sanders says there is not a day that goes by in Kenton County without a heroin-related arrest and he believes it’s only going to get worse.

“It is going to continue to grow and pretty soon you are going to have it all up and down the Northern Kentucky exits as people get across the interstate and shoot as soon as they can, but if you look at the cluster of the arrests, they are all in business parking lots less than a mile off the interstate.”

Sanders said it’s also moving down the interstate into the suburbs because Covington officers have done a great job policing the gas stations right off the interstate and they are going elsewhere to get high.

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